L'ombre du passé

Bebe Daniels was a very interesting Hollywood star. In her early days, during the 1910s and into the 1920s, she was frequently employed in comedy shorts...most often with Harold Lloyd and Snub Pollard. These were light but enjoyable films. However, in the later 20s and into the sound era, suddenly she reinvented herself and became a starring lady in a variety of dramas, such as "Registered Nurse".

When the story begins, Sylvia and her husband are having an argument. Unexpectedly, he then deliberately drives their car into a tree...nearly killing her.

The film then jumps ahead and Sylvia is going back to work as a nurse at a hospital. Of all the nurses, she is the best...nearly perfect and beloved by the patients and staff. In fact, a couple doctors are very interested in her and eventually she has to tell them the truth...that she's still married and her husband is in an asylum for the mentally ill! However, late in the story, it looks like one of her admirers might be able to operate on the husband and make him normal once again....and then the unexpected happens.

The film came out just a few months before the new Production Code came into effect. Because of this, much of the plot simply would not have been allowed in a film released after July, 1934. For example, the film has a character named 'Sonnevich' (yes, it sounds almost exactly like you think), the film seems to advocate suicide and there are a lot of VERY colorful moments that simply never would have been in a post-Code movie.

So is it any good? Yes. And, it offers a most unusual combination of comedy AND drama! While the movie isn't perfect and is a tad predictable, it is exciting and Sidney Toler's part in the film is simply unbelievable! See it...and see what I mean.

I'd recognize Sidney Toler's voice anywhere.

"Registered Nurse" is from 1934 and stars Bebe Daniels in her last film before moving to London, Lyle Talbot, John Halliday, Gordon Westcott, and the aforementioned Sidney Toler as a wrestling promoter.

Daniels is Sylvia Benton, unhappily married to Jim Benton (Westcott) who, on their way home from a party, crashes their car. We only see his unconscious body on the ground.

In the next scene, Sylvia seems alone and she's talking about going back into nursing, which she does. She turns out to be quite invaluable at the hospital and attracts the amorous attentions of both a surgeon (Talbot) and the head doctor (Halliday). Both want to marry her. What they don't know is that her husband is alive and locked up in an asylum.

Sylvia can't divorce Jim because the only grounds for divorce in New York was adultery.

Subplots concern the patients: a bordello madam (Irene Franklin), a cop (Ed Gargan), and Toler, whose character has a broken leg.

The limpid-eyed Daniels was a good actress with a beautiful speaking voice, and this cast acquits itself well in this Hollywood melodrama. I imagine during her time at Warners, Daniels and Kay Francis were probably up for some of the same roles.

After moving to England with her husband, Ben Lyon, she became a stage and radio star, and appeared in a few films with her husband. She remained married to Lyon until she died.

Daniels, who started acting as a child, came from an interesting family. She was related to DeForest Kelley of "Star Trek" fame, and her cousin, Lee DeForest, "the father of sound," was responsible for improving sound when it first hit the movies. Her daughter was a singer for Columbia Records, and her son a disc jockey.

Most fascinating of all, Al Capone was a fan, and when her jewels were stolen from a Chicago hotel, he got them back for her.

Some big names in this one from the 1930s... Lyle Talbot had started in films right around the advent of talkies. Sydney Toler played Charlie Chan SO many times. Bebe Daniels was queen of the shortz in the silent films, and transitioned into sound films. Here, Sylvia ( Daniels) is married to a real SOB, and when he's injured, she goes back to work as a nurse, hoping to have hubby operated on. It's alright. kind of goes on and on. Clearly, she has to work to support herself, but she kind of leads everyone on and on and on, so it gets repetitious after a while. S'okay. has a plausible story. Directed by frenchman Robert Florey. Florey had arrived in hollywood in the late 1920s.

... and that's odd because this is half of a Warner Archive precode collection double feature DVD. Still I think it is worth your while because of the unusual storyline.

A woman (Bebe Daniels as Sylvia Benton) is married to a man of means who is also a mean drunk (Gordon Westcott as Jim), let's him drive them home in that condition (bad idea), and tells him she plans to divorce him while he is at the wheel (worse idea). He laughs maniacally as she asks him to slow down, and he crashes their car with his reckless driving. The last thing we see of them together is Sylvia unhurt dragging Jim from the car.

Next scene is Sylvia applying for a job as an R.N., claiming she is single. She said she was an R.N. earlier in the film, but she could have been lying about that too, because apparently nursing in 1934 is all about washing dishes by hand, gossiping about the men in their lives, and smoking heavily - in the hospital! Other than taking temperatures I see very little medicine involved with these nurses, unless Sylvia being chased by a pair of doctors, John Halliday as Dr. Hedwig and Lyle Talbot as Dr. Connolly, counts.

So what happened to Sylvia's husband? Is he dead from the wreck? Is he alive, still a mean drunk, and trying to track her down? Something else? Honorable mention HAS to go to Sidney Toler and Irene Franklin as a feuding couple that rough each other up so badly that they have to be brought to the hospital (in the same ambulance), stay for several weeks to heal, and then walk out together arm in arm as though nothing ever happened. Apparently the bill did not bother them. But in the days when your nurses mainly wash dishes and smoke, I guess hospitals could keep costs down some.

Stick around for Toler and Franklin and also for the spectacle of somebody using the death of a cop to get in a woman's pants - I'll let you watch and see what I mean. And also ponder the question - Is it murder to tell somebody whose private life you know more about than they do that a theoretical person - who happens to be just like them - would be better off and be doing the world a favor if he just jumped out of a high story window...when a high story window is nearby, and then you just leave them to their thoughts.

Worth a look for the novelty of it all.

Quite enjoyable until the contrivances add up to an annoying level. OK acting, but nothing but stereotypes inhabit this General Hospital melodrama. Bebe Daniels is indistinguishable from Kay Francis and other beautiful, benevolent and noble female leads of the 30s. Some good one-liners, but not meat on the bones. "Men in White", another hospital drama from the same period, holds up much better.